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5 Tips for Creating a Better Logo

One of the best ways to brand your company graphics is to create a logo that will attract attention, create awareness, and stay memorable through the years. When creating a logo, it can be tough to really find what you want to do with a logo, what colors to choose, and even how to place it on objects. If you have a truly great logo, however, it should all come naturally.

While you need to have a great team and a great idea behind you, here are a few other tips for creating the best logo for your brand:

Know What The Logo Actually MeansLogos need to have a story behind them. When you think about what you want the brand to say, you will start creating the story behind what it really means. Think about the Twitter bird, for example. We say the phrase “the little bird told me,” and then go on to repeat gossip – which is essentially what Twitter is as well.

Of course, you can go the opposite way and come up with the story for the logo once it has been designed, but that doesn’t always fit into the brand’s story and you won’t have something as strong.

If possible, make the logo something that they can see inside the story. Look at Fed-Ex, for example. It took people a long time to see the arrow inside of it, but now it is all that they can see.

Avoid the Cliché Of course, once that FedEx logo came to light (thanks, Buzzfeed), we started to see more and more arrow logos that tried to mimic the same thing. These trends and fads work for a short time, but they don’t always work for the length of business.

Keep the clichés for marketing purposes so that when they are ready to go out of style, they can just switch it up too.

To avoid the cliché, look up other logos and see what they have in common.

Color is Key The color palette you choose is important to your brand as well – and something that can be extremely cliché. Avoid grabbing the millennial pink colors or whatever shade Pantone decides is the best color of the year.

Instead, go with colors that have a proven success story and that will highlight your brand’s messaging and story. Of course, you also want to consider what your logo looks like in grayscale. Remember that people will likely print things out and it has to look good in grayscale.

To go the extra mile, you might even want to find a way for it to look great in a single color version as well, though they isn’t strictly necessary in today’s world.

Own It Companies have to be able to own their logos. This means it has to be something that is unique enough that they can, without a doubt, showcase that the idea is unique and original. You have to take something that is simple and make it unique.

Take for example the Apple logo. An Apple isn’t exactly unique. However, taking the “byte” out of the logo and making it the stem makes it instantly recognizable. Other companies may use an apple, but it is obvious which ones are generic.

To brainstorm a more unique and “ownable” logo, brainstorm almost fifth different logos and don’t pick from your first ten. Whatever your first options are will probably be the same as someone else’s.

Keep it Simple Stupid At the end of the day, the most important thing to do is keep it simple. Simplicity means memorability for many. However, it also means that branding will be easy. Try sticking with a few colors, a shape or two, and a simplistic font for the best logos.

The logos that we remember are extremely simple – like Coca-Cola, Google, or even Apple. To get the best results, take something simple and add just a little extra.

No matter what you do, think about going the extra mile and creating a logo that will last for a lifetime instead of one that will just capture attention for now.